Expectations for this debate could not have been lower. Donald Trump’s pre-debate press event confirmed his intention to confront Hillary Clinton by throwing charges of serial infidelity, sexual assault, and rape at President Bill Clinton. All four of the women who took part in Trump’s press event were seated in the audience, and by the time the moderators called in the debate the assumption was already that Trump wasn’t there to fight for the presidency — but simply to do as much damage as possible.
And from the no-handshake opening, it was clear that civility was not going to be the first priority of the night. Trump lived down to expectations.
Hillary Clinton answered her first question carefully, keeping pointedly away from the issue that has dominated the last two days. It took Anderson Cooper to force Trump to confront the sexual assault he endorsed in the tape released on Friday. Trump instantly denied what everyone in America heard him say, claiming both that Cooper “didn’t understand” and that “you hear these things, they’re said” as he repeatedly dismissed his statement as “locker room banter.” Rather than answer any specifics, Trump veered into talking about ISIS chopping off heads, in an effort to prove that hey, his little sexual assault was really a minor thing in such a bad world ... so let’s get back to Hillary’s email.
Then on the second attempt to extract an answer from Trump over the issue of his statement, Donald finally released his assault on Bill Clinton. Hillary’s response on this, and on several other attacks that Trump made, was to dismiss his statement. She instead laid out a litany of Trump’s statements. This was the highlight of Clinton’s night, allowing Clinton to flay Trump steadily for most of her two minutes while Trump paced and turned various shades of pumpkin.
For the rest of the night, Clinton’s answers were mostly safe, and she concentrated on being responsive to the audience. But Trump delivered some real shockers, enough that it’s hard to pick out the biggest eye-openers.
- Trump announced, though he “hated to say it,” that if he wins, he will appoint a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton. Because nothing says democracy like threatening to lock up your opponent.
- On Syria, Donald Trump explicitly disagreed with Mike Pence saying "He and I haven't spoken and we disagree." Where Pence was ready to go after Assad’s assets to protect Aleppo, Donald Trump instead turned his back on the rebels, saying we “don’t know who they are” and calling them worse than Assad and Russia. At one point Trump said “Syria is Russia,” and as he always does, Donald Trump supported Russia. Putin got his money’s worth tonight.
- Trump demonstrated that he has a peculiar form of X-ray vision, saying that Hillary Clinton has “tremendous hate in her heart,” then repeating the remark.
- Trump admitted to not paying any taxes. Though he dodged the question the first time, when asked directly he said that “Of course” he took advantage of the tax loophole that allowed him to avoid taxes for years. Pressed further, his response on this was the same as it was on several other question—other people did it. So there.
- Trump denied his previous sex tape scandal, the one in which he tweeted that the nation should go and look at a sex tape which doesn’t exist.
- Trump repeatedly challenged Hillary Clinton over why she, as a single senator, had not changed the tax code. “If you were an effective senator, you could have done it!” Making it unclear if Donald Trump knows how the government works. Actually, making it clear that he doesn’t.
- Trump lied about his position on Iraq. Again. Because there’s no amount of pointing out his lies that will keep him from lying.
- Confronted on Russian hacking, Trump not only repeated his previous statements that Hillary doesn’t know it was Russia—even though two federal agencies have said it was definitely Russia—and then followed up with the even more incredible statement: “Maybe there is no hacking.” Maybe.
- Trump sniffed. A lot. Any comments, Howard? While thinking about your response, also note Trump’s 10K of pacing and looming over Hillary during questions.
Overall, Trump spent the first 20 minutes ranting, then the remainder of the night merely acting like a creepy stalker. And through it all he provided enough soundbites to power Hillary through a raft of commercials where Donald is forced to listen to his own words.